On Basilisk Station

WAGs... That's a technical term we engineers use. It means 'Wild-Assed Guess'.

The bigger the lie, apparently, the more likely the uninformed were to accept it, simply because they couldn't believe any government would tell such an absurd story unless it were true.

I am an officer of the Royal Manticoran Navy, Sir—" Venizelos felt an undeniable rush of adrenaline and pleasure as he faced the burly captain squarely "—and the Royal Manticoran Navy does not 'bluff.

McKeon: “You know Hauptman is going to deny they had anything to do with it [smuggling].” “Forty-three million in illegal peltries? Of course they will, just as Mondragon's captain insists the space fairies must have brought them,” Honor said ironically.

They could hate her guts all they liked as long as they did their duty.

Fail not in this charge at your peril.

Manticore System's G0 primary and its G2 companion were dim behind her, reduced to two more stars amid millions, for the Junction lay almost seven light-hours from them.

But Haven had become a threat. After almost two T-centuries of deficit spending to shore up an increasingly insolvent welfare state, Haven had decided it had no choice but to turn conquistador to acquire the resources it needed to support its citizens in the style to which they had become accustomed, and the People's Navy had proven its capacity to do just that over the course of the last five decades.

one of the first signs of a self-destructing aboriginal culture always seems to be an increase in the use of drugs and intoxicants,

But every time I told myself one lie, I had to tell another to justify the ones that came before it.

If one of her officers needed reprimanding, she would attend to it in private, just as she made it a point to deliver praise in public.

That thought let her banish the grin at last, because if independent command was what every good officer craved, a captain all alone in the big dark had no one to appeal to. No one to take the credit or share the blame, for she was all alone, the final arbiter of her ship's fate and the direct, personal representative of her queen and kingdom, and if she failed that trust no power in the galaxy could save her.

Whatever it took, she would discharge her own duties and meet her own responsibilities. Not just to protect her career, but because they were her duties and responsibilities.

The bigger the lie, apparently, the more likely the uninformed were to accept it,

All right, Chief Killian." She allowed herself an airy gesture at the forward visual display. "That away—full military power.